Tekkit – MV Solar Array factory

I set a goal for myself with this build; to build a Solar Array factory. I wanted it to be “fully automated”, not use teleport pipes, and only fill the material in one place each (it was ok to fill two sorts in one chest, as long as they were needed there and nowhere else). All material used are refined (like ingots, rubber and glass), but no components were built in advance. The signs tell the details for the station: text on top is material to fill, and bottom text is what is built.

The reason for chosing the MV array is that it was my first try to do something like this with automatic crafting tables, and just doing the basic solar panel is kind of useless, and the HV solar panel felt like a big step 🙂 Maybe will do it later some time, but I don’t think so…

One round with the below materials will not be enough to build a MV Solar Array due to the fact that Copper Cable is crafted 6 at a time. In the movie I had to add 4 rubber and 2 copper, that gave the last 2 copper cable needed, and also left 4 cables in the system. So three rounds is needed to even things out, but the proposions are correct.

Time to make one MV Solar Array is around 15 minutes. This can be speeded up with quicker item pulls than Redstone Engines, I tried with several engines on the same wooden pipe, but got a problem in the distribution pipes then. See further down for more info about that.

Regarding the schematics in the video; one thing is incorrect, and that is the 2x insulated gold cable. When I did it I thought that it was possible to do it in one machine, but it was not. That is why the gold cable station in the middle is not in the schematic.

It actually took me three tries to get it right 🙂
First try I had an iron pipe in the wrong direction, the second I had some ratios incorrect. Last try everything was ok, but I had problems with the distribution pipes. Maybe by design, maybe a bug:

First I had three redstone engines to the rubber output, but then the rubber came out three at a time (of course), but were treated as one unit in the distribution pipes. So instead of 4 units in the gold cable box, I got 3 or 6. Maybe evens out in the long run, I don’t know, but it felt like I did not have complete control over it.

After solving that, I found out I had the same problem with copper cables, since they came out 6 at a time. I solved that easily with a “buffer chest” directly after the copper cable crafting table.

If you like what you see, please make me aware of it. If not, then tell me what you think I should improve!

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